Finished Evaluation presented in Prezi

Our Foundation Portfolio Evaluation: http://prezi.com/uolomjd09nvc/untitled-prezi/

Thriller Video Final

Here is the Final Version of our Thriller opening, 'The Witness'.

All of the relative changes/amendments I have made to the final version from the draft versions, have been noted as 'Editing #5' blog. 

The Witness (Final Version) from Lew Parker on Vimeo.

Editing #5

When producing the final version of our group's thriller opening, these are the changes that were made:

- A greater amount of consideration was given to the soundscape. As the main editor, I concentrated on what was missing in the sound. (i.e. what natural sound had been omitted in the construction of the video, thus would need replacing with diegetic and non-diegetic sounds.) As shown above, the soundscape grew vastly. I later specifically added to other sounds, for example a 'door slam' was manipulated by cutting up various sounds of doors. Furthermore, the use of a heartbeat sound was something I chose to put across the whole of the video, however I used multiple different heartbeats to amplify certain degrees of tension. It was important considering the significance of each of the sounds within the scape at a particular scene, thus these were indicated through increasing the level of some, whilst decreasing others. In addition to this features such as the Car Radio during 00:24 - 00:30 seconds were also considered, as a Heavy Metal/Hardcore was supplemented for what had been a pop song during the footage. 

I believe we managed to really succeed with the sounds, with the help of my group finding certain sounds to suit the video. 

 

- Use of more intercutting shots during the establishing shots of the flashback. This heightened tension during the narration of the Witness and the antagonist's persistence, but also put the video in more context for the audience because it allowed them to distinguish flashback between the present-day cafe scene. Shots of the antagonists eyes twitching adds particular enigma, whilst shots of the lips also conceals their identity. As an audience, this would infer that having a character concealed in this way whilst the Witness spoke to them, suggests they have a bad nature or something 'enigmatic' about them and draws away from the fact that he is not simply the Witness' kind-loving friend. 

- Further colour correction was also made in the video, as this drew particular distinction between the flashback sequence and the intercutting cafe scene. Furthermore, lighting on the anatagonist's face was also added slightly, creating 'chiaroscuro shadowing''; a particular convention our group wanted to adopt. Some of the scenes were also given a slight tint, as seen in the shot above. Ultimately this gives the video dark connotations, appeasing to a rather sinister look often expected within Thriller films.

- I felt it was also important to include a production title, so I made a brief animated one within Final Cut. I initially experimented with 'Motion 5' but instead felt confident with using Final Cut Pro X. During the first part of the title I used effects such as 'Bad TV' and 'Prism' to give the production company a distorted look. I chose to do this because it instills a level of hysteria into the audience, which adds to the Video being 'Enigmatic'. The font added a professional simplified look but the typeface itself also symbolises darker, jagged imagery often associated with thriller titles.  

- After watching Draft #3 back the group decided that the lip-syncing was slightly out, so this was something I also corrected. 

Draft #3

Here is the latest draft of our thriller opening, The Witness.

The Witness (Draft3) from Lew Parker on Vimeo.

At present we have solved some of the issues that had been raised in the previous drafts. Furthermore, my choice to use Final Cut Pro X provided other elements that can be incorporated into the editing I had done so far; I found Pro X a great program to use. 

Here are some of my considerations for the Final Version:

- Further consideration needs to be given to to the soundscape; building of texture and dynamics (more so in the second half).

- Flashback scenes may need further lines of dialogue over them.

- A couple of intercutting shots of the Head Mob Member (actor: Tommy) in between flashbacks, in order to create more tension.

- Positioning of key music to create further tension. (For example: samples such as 'foot scrapping' or more 'footstep' sounds).

I will be in contact with both Chris and Declan, show them the current draft of the video and then, get their opinion's on producing the final version. 

Evaluation part I (Planning)

As initial planning of our evaluation we looked at the 7 questions which we will have to answer:

1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3) What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
5) How did you attract/address your audience?
6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression for it to the main task?

Me and Declan have decided to analysed and listed our approach to Question 1. We thought this would be a great way of planning this part of the evaluation and considering the technologies we would like to incorporate. 

Editing #4

Once importing the footage and re-arranging it within 'Final Cut Pro X', I focused on creating a distinction between the colour of the flashback scenes in contrast with the cafe. I couldn't simply import the video from Express to Pro X, which meant having to re-make the whole video. However I didn't mind doing this because it allowed me to make corrections such as more concise cutting, stabilisation and re-arranging parts.

I used a combination of a Projector and Threshold filter, whilst making corrections to Contrast/Brightness/Sharpening, etc. In the FINAL version, I will again go over what I have done and create a 'happy medium' between all of the shots.

It was time to begin with imputing the audio of the project. To record the dialogue of Actor Tommy (Cafe Mob Man sat chatting to Witness) I used my Iphone 4S Voice Recorder. I opted for this over, perhaps what would be deemed more 'suitably professional' technology such as Cubase and a Condenser Microphone, because of how accessible it was. In addition to this, it provided a good quality of audio that could later be edited. With the dialogue in place, this helped me (and Chris who helped with finding sound), to position other audio elements within the soundscape. We could acknowledge which parts of the video were more dense with audio and other parts that needed working upon. 

 I used effects including 'Ken Burns' when cropping the video, particularly during the shot where we see the Mob member turn around and realise the Witness is present. This created tension and was a good tool to experiment with.

I chose to also import blank black jpegs to create a 'letterbox effect'. The use of artificial aspect ratios in this way provided the cinematic look that I wanted the video to embody. Furthermore, instead of just using the pre-set letterbox effect, this allowed me to be able to move the footage around under the black lines. This omitted any problems that could be faced with cutting out people's faces and positioning characters within the frame correctly. 

Animated Title Construction

In the last unsupervised lesson I re-considered our title. The first title as seen in a previous draft was something Declan created within Livetype. Although this was a good starting point we both decided that we needed to amend this.

As a result, this is what I created within Final Cut. Currently it is only a prototype of the kind of style we would like to incorporate into our video, which will similarly appear on 'ending credits' if we choose to later have them. The animated title currently features a moving background, which is part of a clip of static. I then edited the colour of this. The text itself when moving enlarges slightly.